After world birding all
summer, we arrived home in time for one day before I started back in Year 8. With only two days back, I was then off
school for a day. My school, Chew Valley
School
I was going to a conference
organised by A Focus on Nature (AFON), a youth nature conservation network. It was a two day conference on Friday 5th
and Saturday 6th September 2015 at Cambridge University
Mum and I got a lift from
Beth Aucott, who is doing a 12 month traineeship with Somerset Wildlife Trust.
We stayed at Westminster College St John’s
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| Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig at Westminster College, Cambridge University Photograph taken by and copyright Helena Craig |
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| Kings College, Cambridge University
Photograph taken by and copyright Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig
|
The conference was called “A Vision
for Nature” and is about looking forward and asking the question, “what do
today’s young people want the natural world in 2050 to look like, and how do we
get there?”
In 2050 I will be 48 years
old, a bit older then my parents now and just coming up to “reviewing” my whole
life on my 50th birthday. I
hope by then I’ve done some things to save our planet that I can be proud of.
The conference was made up of
debating the future in conservation and workshops giving training in areas like
wildlife film-making and photography.
The debates were on subjects
like “Should science have the final say in conservation?” and “All creatures
great and small: species conservation in Britain
Lucy McRobert and Matt
Williams, who organised the conference, had done amazingly well signing up high
profile conservationists, like Dr Rob Lambert, Stephen Moss and Dr Tony
Juniper. Dr Andy Clements, Director of
the BTO, was also there and was brilliant because he went around and spoke to lots
the young people.
That evening, a large group
of us went to Wagamama’s for dinner before going on to a pub. Lucy was great and introduced me to some new
people, which I appreciated. I also had
a lovely chat with Ed Marshall, he’s a talented photographer and is really supportive
of me on Facebook. It was also great to
see Alex Berryman and Josie Hewitt, who I see twitching sometimes.
The next day, there was a
debate called “Teen Wolf: Unleashing the wild connection in children”. It was led by Stephen Moss who wrote the
report for English Nature called “Natural Childhood” about how children are no
longer engaging with nature and how to reconnect them. The debate was really interesting but I’m not
sure there was a solution. This is a
topic I care about a lot, which is why I have written about getting children
into wildlife and birds.
I even plucked up the courage
to talk about the imbalanced attitude towards girls compared to boys when it
comes to the outdoors. From my
experience of Guides, girls are expected to keep their clothes clean and neat,
be sensible and stay within sight when outdoors. Whilst at Scouts, boys are allowed to roll
around in the mud, play unsupervised and get their clothes dirty.
To get children and young
people interested in conservation, they have to be out in nature first. No one is going to care about conservation if
they don’t appreciate nature and wildlife.
I believe that we all have to do everything we can to get children and
young people interested in nature, wildlife and conversation.
In my area virtually all the
primary schools have incorporated forest school into their timetable. This is a fantastic way of getting children
connected to nature from a very early age. Dad has been helping with forest
school at my old primary school for a few years. He talks about the importance of letting it
be child led and not too structured. He
has also made sure forest school incorporates wildlife. I think that forest school is just what
children need to get that engagement with nature that Stephen Moss’ report
talked about.
The link from an interest in
nature to the importance of conservation and saving the environment can take
place properly from about age 8 onward.
We started to talk about issues in science in my primary school. As conservationists, we all have a part to
play.
I
have run bird workshops at Guides and at a Scout Jamboree attended by 200
Scouts. I am planning sessions for both to see starling murmurations and
nightjar, watching ringing, making nest boxes and feeders and a session on why
nature is fun. Other Guides and Scouts
Groups in my area are also interest in doing similar sessions. I am hoping to give talks next year on how to
get children and teenagers interested in nature.
My
article in September Bird Watching Magazine gave my top ten tips for getting children
interested in birds and wildlife and I also my top five birds to show a child
to get them hooked. My interview in September
BBC Countryfile Magazine gave a list of my most amazing British birds and my
tips online on “how to be a birdwatcher”.
In
July, I gave a talk to Year 12 Environmental Science A level students. I talked to them about conservation projects I
have seen first-hand and what worked well. I wanted them to understand how wide
ranging projects can be. The feedback
was that they felt inspired to take a gap year and get involved with a project,
maybe even abroad. Before my talk,
conservation was something they had studied but not something that was real to
them. Afterwards, it was something they
felt they could connect with. I feel
lucky that I have travelled so widely and so it is important to me to share the
knowledge I have gained and my world perspective.
At
the conference, we were asked to write our Vision for Nature. Whilst we were in Malaysia
and Borneo , I was shocked at the extent of
palm oil plantations. Land is deforested
to plant palm oil trees, which support virtually no wildlife. At times we drove for hours, with nothing but
palm oil plantations as far as we could see.
In the Kinabatangan
River
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| Palm Oil Plantations, Sabah, Borneo
Photograph taken by and copyright Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig
|
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| Palm Oil Plantations, Sabah, Borneo Photograph taken by and copyright Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig |
With
a global view, I feel it is more important to save an entire species from
extinction (like the Madagascan Pochard) rather than spend lots of money to
save a bird from no longer breeding in Britain, which is anyway on the edge of
its natural range and widespread elsewhere (like maybe Golden Oriole). Often, when one “flagship” species is saved in
say a rainforest, lots of other species, like insects and “ugly” animals, also
benefit from the saving of a habitat. However, where there is persecution in Britain Malta
In
Borneo, I met a really interesting man who had worked for WWF in Borneo for 20 years and then I suspect due to
frustration, set up and NGO to save the Sumatran Rhino. He talked about how conservative the large
organizations can be and how it can take many years to get decisions, because
of their size, number of people involved in the process and number of
interested parties. After the conference
it made me wonder whether working in conservation made it difficult to be an eco-warrior. Will someone who had been arrested for hunt sabbing
find it harder to get a job? My Dad used
to be a hunt saboteur and it sounds cool to me.
My
vision for the future is that “all the palm oil plantations turn back into
forest”. It is a vision that can also be
extended to bringing wildlife habitats back where they have been lost all over
the world. My vision is that we will not
be afraid to fight for conservation and our environment.
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| Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig with Vision for the Future Photograph taken by and copyright Helena Craig |
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